NATIONAL SERVICES POLICY REVIEW Nepal
NATIONAL SERVICES
POLICY REVIEW
New York and Geneva, 2011 ii
NATIONAL SERVICES POLICY REVIEW OF NEPAL
NOTE
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FOREWORD
FOREWORD
For many years, UNCTAD has been emphasising the importance of developing countries strengthening and diversifying their services sector. Since 1990 the share of services in GDP in developed countries grew from 64 percent to 72 percent. By contrast, in developing countries the share of services in GDP grew from 46 percent to 50 percent, with services accounting for only 35 percent of formal employment. These figures suggest a large un-tapped potential for developing countries to advance the development of their services sectors.
The Accra Accord states that “The services economy is the new frontier for the expansion of trade, productivity and competitiveness, and for the provision of essential services and universal access.” The Accord calls upon
UNCTAD to assist developing countries and countries with economies in transition to establish regulatory and institutional frameworks and cooperative mechanisms to strengthen the capacity, efficiency and competitiveness of their services sector, and to increase their participation in global services production and trade, including by
“providing support in national services assessment and policy reviews.” UNCTAD developed its tailormade National Services Policy Reviews (NSPR) in response to the Accra Accord.
The services sector in Nepal is now the largest sector in the economy; its share of GDP has risen from 26 percent in 1980 to over 42 percent today. The Nepalese NSPR focused on two future growth areas within the services sector, namely tourism and IT services. In conducting the NSPR a national team of experts, with technical assistance from UNCTAD, engaged with a broad group of stakeholders from government, industry, academia and civil society to identify challenges and opportunities in tourism and IT services. The process included an analysis of the current policy framework for the tourism and IT services sector; regulatory and institutional challenges inhibiting sectoral development; national development objectives; prospective policy options to strengthen domestic supply capacity and SMEs competitiveness; and the potential impacts of services and services trade liberalization on sectoral FDI, SMEs, efficiency, employment, access to foreign markets and universal access to basic services.
The resulting recommendations from the NSPR are set out in detail in the body of this report and include proposed measures to enhance the tourism services sector and improve the IT services sector.
I hope that the contents of this publication will contribute to providing a strategic vision for the development of Nepal’s services sector, and assist the country to continue to derive development benefits from trade in services.
Supachai Panitchpakdi
Secretary-General of UNCTAD iv
NATIONAL SERVICES POLICY REVIEW OF NEPAL
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This publication presents the results of National Services Policy Review (NSPR) undertaken by Nepal and UNCTAD. The Nepal NSPR was made possible by the financial support of United Kingdom Department for
International Development under the UNCTAD/DFID project on “Assistance to developing countries on Services,
Development and Trade”.
Part I contains a report prepared by UNCTAD to support Nepal’s NSPR entitled “Strategies for advancing development of the services sectors of Nepal”. The UNCTAD Report was prepared by a team led by Mina
Mashayekhi, Head, Trade Negotiations and Commercial Diplomacy Branch. The contributors were Deepali
Fernandes and Robert Hamwey. Comments were provided by Alberto Gabriele. The report draws on the ongoing substantive work of UNCTAD in the services sector.
Part II presents the NSPR Report of Nepal. It was prepared by a national team of experts with guidance and substantive support provided by UNCTAD. The national team included Ramesh Chitrakar, Anup Banskota and Manohar Bhattarai. Dr. Chirakar is Professor of Economics at Tribhuvan University and Executive Director, Centre for Economic Development and Administration; Mr. Banskota is Assistant Professor and Coordinator, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Kathmandu University; and Mr. Bhattarai is Vice-Chairman, High-Level
Commission for Information Technology, Government of Nepal. Inputs were also made by Purushottam Ojha,
Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Supplies, Government of Nepal; H.E. Mr. Dinesh Bhattarai,
Ambassador, Permanent Representative and Mr. Ravi Bhattarai, Deputy Representative, Permanent Mission of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal to the United Nations Office in Geneva and Jibraj Koirala, Under-
Secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Supplies, Government of Nepal, who served as the national focal point for the NSPR.
Part III provides a brief report of an UNCTAD meeting on National Services Policy Reviews convened in Geneva on 16 March 2010. This meeting provided an opportunity for national teams from Nepal, the Kyrgyz Republic and Uganda to present their NSPR reports to Geneva-based delegates and trade negotiators and the Department for International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and share experiences and lessons learnt.
The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Government of Nepal or UNCTAD.
Administrative and logistic support was provided by Faustina Attobra-Wilson.
Laura Moresino-Borini designed the cover and carried out the desktop publishing. v
CONTENTS
CONTENTS
Note.........................................................................................................................................................................ii
Foreword ................................................................................................................................................................iii
Acknowledgements................................................................................................................................................iv
PART I. STRATEGIES FOR ADVANCING DEVELOPMENT
OF THE SERVICES SECTORS OF NEPAL..................................................1
A. Background............................................................................................................................................2
B. Economic Panorama..............................................................................................................................2
C. Enhancing growth and performance in the services sector ...............................................................8
1. Building a master plan ....................................................................................................................................... 8
2. Strengthening established services sectors...................................................................................................... 9
3. Maturing, new and emerging services sectors................................................................................................ 13
4. National efforts and policies to support small and medium-sized enterprises in the services sectors ......................................................................................................................................... 18
5. National trade policies for the expansion of key services sectors................................................................... 20
D. Recommendations for national consultations ...................................................................................25
References ........................................................................................................................................................... 26
Other related papers............................................................................................................................................ 27
PART II. NATIONAL SERVICES POLICY REVIEW OF NEPAL: TOURISM AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES ..............................................29
A. Overview of Nepal’s services sector .................................................................................................. 30
1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................... 30
2. Economic performance.................................................................................................................................... 30
3. Social performance.......................................................................................................................................... 35
4. Institutional overview ........................................................................................................................................ 37
B. Tourism services sector ......................................................................................................................41
1. Role and performance of the tourism services sector..................................................................................... 41
2. Regulation, institutions and policy measures .................................................................................................. 48
References ........................................................................................................................................................... 64
C. Information technology and software services sector......................................................................66
1. Role and performance of the information technology and computer services sector in the national economy....................................................................................................................................... 66
2. Overview of the information and communication technology and computer services sectors ...................... 66
3. Investment trends............................................................................................................................................. 69
4. National supply capacity.................................................................................................................................. 70
5. Status of achieving national Millennium Development Goals.......................................................................... 71 vi
NATIONAL SERVICES POLICY REVIEW OF NEPAL
6. Policy recommendations and elements of national strategy........................................................................... 72
7. Regulations, institutions and policy measures ................................................................................................ 72
8. Trade liberalization ........................................................................................................................................... 78
9. Analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats........................................................................ 84
10. Proposed action............................................................................................................................................. 85
11. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................... 87
Annex 1................................................................................................................................................................. 88
Appendix ............................................................................................................................................................. 89
PART III. PRESENTATION OF NEPAL NATIONAL SERVICES POLICY REVIEW ........ 91
A. Introduction..........................................................................................................................................92
B. Recommendations...............................................................................................................................92
C. Recommendations for the tourism services sector...........................................................................92
D. Recommendations for the information technology services sector.................................................93
E. Action plan ...........................................................................................................................................94
F. Questions and answers........................................................................................................................94
G. Implementation roles for the Government of Nepal, UNCTAD and donors...........................................94
Annex 1. Agenda: Nepal first national stakeholder workshop on services ......................................................... 95
Annex 2. List of participants: Nepal first national stakeholder workshop on services ....................................... 97
Annex 3. Agenda: Nepal second national stakeholder workshop on services .................................................. 98
Annex 4. List of participants: Nepal second national stakeholder workshop on services .................................. 99
Boxes
I.1. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats: Nepal’s tourism sector ............................................. 14
I.2. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the information technology, information technology-enabled services, and business process outsourcing sector in Nepal.................. 19
II.1. Analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats prepared by the Government of Nepal and the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation: Nepal’s tourism sector.......................................... 57
II.2 Anaylsis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats prepared by UNCTAD-DITC:
Nepal’s tourism sector .................................................................................................................................. 58
Tables
I.1. Main functions served by the master plan....................................................................................................... 8
II.1. Sectoral contribution to GDP and GDP growth rate ..................................................................................... 31
II.2. Sector-wise GDP composition (percentage), 2000/01–2007/08 .................................................................. 32
II.3. Nepal’s exports and imports of services (million dollars)............................................................................. 32
II.4. Trade in services in Nepal by major sectors (in millions of dollars).............................................................. 33
II.5. Nepal’s service trade, including Mode 2 trade (in millions of Nepalese rupees)......................................... 33
II.6. Industries permitted for foreign investment by mid-March 2009.................................................................. 34
II.7. Industries approved for foreign investments in the 2007/08 fiscal year ....................................................... 34 vii
CONTENTS
II.8. Employment in various services sectors, 2007............................................................................................. 35
II.9. Rural employment in various services sectors, 2007.................................................................................... 36
II.10. Urban employment in various services sectors, 2007................................................................................ 37
II.11. Institutional overview of services sector in Nepal........................................................................................ 38
II.12. Number of tourists by purpose of visit........................................................................................................ 42
II.13. Growth rate of tourist arrivals by major regions (percentage) .................................................................... 43
II.14. Foreign exchange earnings from tourism ................................................................................................... 44
II.15. Mountaineering expedition teams............................................................................................................... 45
II.16. Contribution of tourism to achieving the Millennium Development Goals.................................................. 47
II.17. Nepal’s Tourism Commitments within the World Trade Organization......................................................... 52
II.18. International tourists visiting Nepal in 2007................................................................................................. 53
II.19. Revealed comparative advantage by sector .............................................................................................. 54
II.20. Trade in travel services................................................................................................................................ 54
II.21. Tourists arrivals from countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation........................ 55
II.22. Action plan matrix........................................................................................................................................ 63
II.23. Licences issued by the National Telecommunication Authority ..................................................................... 74
Figures..........................................................................................................................................................
Figures
I.1. Structure of the Nepalese economy in 1980 and 2005 ................................................................................... 4
I.2. Sectoral composition of Nepal’s GDP in 2006 ................................................................................................ 5
I.3. Performance of Nepal’s combined services and merchandise trade over the past decade ......................... 6
I.4. Relative performance of Nepal’s services and merchandise exports over the past decade ......................... 6
I.5. Breakdown of Nepal’s commercial services exports in 2006.......................................................................... 6
I.6. Evolution of gross domestic product in Nepal (2005) ..................................................................................... 7
I.7. GDP growth in Nepal ....................................................................................................................................... 7
I.8. Breakdown of Nepal’s commercial services experts in 2006.......................................................................... 9
II.1 Sector-wise contribution to GDP (percentage) .............................................................................................. 31
II.2. Linkage between tourism and poverty.......................................................................................................... 46 STRATEGIES FOR
ADVANCING DEVELOPMENT
OF THE SERVICES SECTORS
OF NEPAL
A Report by UNCTAD 2
NATIONAL SERVICES POLICY REVIEW OF NEPAL and the rule of law. All these factors are essential in creating the environment needed to attract and sustain investment in the services sectors. However, while all are necessary for the development of a vibrant export-oriented services economy, they are certainly not sufficient; liberalized markets and high levels of foreign demand for services remain prima fascie requirements.
A. BACKGROUND
A vast body of analytical and empirical research undertaken by UNCTAD and others clearly demonstrates that a thriving services sector is vital for allcountries[1].Highratesofinvestmentandeconomic growth associated with services can contribute to poverty alleviation and human development when the right policies are in place to overcome supply constraints and ensure economy-wide development gains from services and services trade. New domestic services supply and services export opportunities for developing countries therefore need to be supported and facilitated by national policies and multilateral agreements relating to services trade, with an emphasis on creating an enabling environment for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which account for the bulk of developing country firms in the services sectors.
Given the enabling and driving role that government plays in the development of services economies, it is useful for policy makers to devise national services export strategies. Moreover, to ensure buy-in and support, as well as to generate desirable spill-in and spillover effects among related economic sectors, strategy development should take place through participative consultations at the national level with all key actors, including parastatal institutions, potential foreign and domestic investors, the private sector, labour groups and academia. The inclusion of the latter two stakeholder groups is particularly relevant for the development of services strategies, given the need to ensure adequate labour transformations and enhanced levels of human capacity in order to support growth of the services workforce.
The recent expansion of global trade in services has provided broad economic gains to a relatively small set of developing countries that have developed modern, high value-added services-oriented economies over the past decade. By virtue of an early mover advantage, these countries are now well positioned to benefit from growth in the key services sectors they have developed, as distant service providers in global outsourcing markets, and as emerging services hubs in regional markets. Examples are the outward-oriented service economies of India,
Hong Kong (China), Singapore and the United Arab
Emirates. Other countries just steps behind these leaders include Mauritius, Jordan, Tunisia and Cost
Rica. Among the key growth sectors are tourism, information technology-enabled services (ITES), business process outsourcing, transport and logistics services, financial services and multimedia services.
Nepal seeks to enhance national experience in developing national services export strategies through multi-stakeholder consultations, and in subsequently owning and driving these strategies with necessary government actions. The exercise at hand thus aims to survey some of the achievements
Nepal has already made in developing the tourism services sectors; to examine what remains to be done to further enhance its development, including through regulatory, institutional and trade policy reform; and to identify what other services sectors may be the best candidates for future development, with particular attention given to the services related to information technology and communication (ICT) and to the education services sectors.
Evidence indicates that national governments, in consultation and coordination with the private sector and civil society, have played a formative role in the development of services economies in both developed and developing economies.[2] They have done so directly, through the development of human, capital and institutional infrastructure, and the design and implementation of supportive policy frameworks and financial incentives – and indirectly, by demonstrating the political will needed to drive the development of services sectors, a record of macroeconomic and political stability, good governance, transparency
B. ECONOMIC PANORAMA
Over the past 30 years, Nepal’s economy has grown from an agricultural to an increasingly diversified economy. The contribution of agriculture, forestry and fishing to the gross domestic product (GDP) declined by nearly half from around 70 per cent in the mid-
1970s to around 38 per cent today. The country’s dependence on fluctuating prices in the world 3
PART I: STRATEGIES FOR ADVANCE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SERVICES SECTORS OF NEPAL: A REPORT BY UNCTAD agricultural commodities market, and its high degree of export concentration in a handful of commodities such as wheat, maize and cash crops, has motivated stakeholders to pursue opportunities to diversify the national economy, including within the agricultural sector by expanding the production and export of tea but also by building national supply capacity in industry and services. sector in the Nepalese economy, although it currently lacks dynamism. Its share of GDP has risen from
26 per cent in 1980 to over 42 per cent today. It has been buoyed by rapid growth in telecommunications, tourism and financial services. However, in recent years, tourism has declined in relative importance as a foreign-exchange earner because of growth in other sources of foreign exchange, such as remittances and foreign aid. Moreover, although restructuring has seen agriculture’s share of GDP decline to around 26 per cent, farming still engages about 76 per cent of the country’s workforce. As such, the improvement in workers’ incomes has been largely limited to urban population groups engaged in the new economy.
Although Nepal is a landlocked least developed country (LDC) with a predominantly rural population of 30 million people, it has made considerable progress in diversifying its economy over the past decade.[3]
Structural economic reform efforts began in 1992 to create a partially convertible current account, remove licence and quota requirements on imports, reduce tariffs, liberalize investment laws, restructure the tax system and privatize a number of state-owned enterprises. Progress in most areas has been slow owing to procedural problems that have impeded privatization. The Government began privatizing public enterprises in 1992 (Privatization Act of 1992) and had privatized or liquidated 26 public enterprises by mid-
2006. This number should have been higher; however, privatization schedules were delayed because of political instability in the country from 2001 to 2006.
In addition, although opposition to privatization of state-owned enterprises remains significant in some sectors, pronouncements by the Communist Party of Nepal, which now has more seats in Parliament than any other party (220 seats in the 601-member
Assembly), have confirmed their support for investorand market-oriented economic policies.
Nepal has also liberalized its trade policy, including as part of its successful bid to join the World Trade
Organization (WTO) in April 2004.[4] Reforms
include: broad commitments in 11 services sectors, an average tariff binding of 42 per cent in agricultural products and around 24 per cent in industrial goods, and implementation of various WTO agreements such as the Agreement on Technical Barriers to
Trade, the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, and the Agreement on
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
(TRIPS).
Results from privatization, investment and trade policy reforms have not yet translated themselves into strong
GDP growth. In fact, Nepal’s economic performance lags behind other South-Asian LDCs such as Laos and Cambodia. Since 2000, Nepal’s, real per capita GDP has only increased from $219 to $290. [5] Nepal thus remains the poorest country in South Asia and ranks as the twelfth poorest country in the world. Nevertheless, government statistics indicate a steady decrease in the proportion of Nepalese living in absolute poverty – from over 42 per cent in 1996 to just over 31 per cent in 2004. However, the poorest region of the country most affected by the conflict – the Midwestern region – still has a poverty incidence almost 20 per cent higher than that of the Central region. Much more ambitious progress is now expected to reduce poverty levels in all regions of Nepal.
The recent period of instability resulted in the following impediments to Nepal’s economic progress:
• Damage to infrastructure;
• Low private-sector investment;
• Slowed government spending on infrastructure;
• Closures of many firms;
• Disruption of development programme projects;
• Disruption of production, trade and transport;
• General insecurity in both rural and urban areas.
Despite these obstacles, the ongoing restructuring process continues to seek to reduce the country’s reliance on agricultural output in favour of production in both industry and services. As a result, the share of the industrial and services sectors combined in real
GDP increased from 55 per cent in 1992 to around 62 per cent in 2006. The services sector is now the largest
Trade remains to be ignited to expand the Nepalese economy. Exports of goods and services combined have shown no upward trend over the past decade
(see figure I.3.) Although merchandise exports grew from $346 m in 1995 to over $760 million today, services decreased from $679 million to $386 million.
A large part of Nepal’s problem results from its 4
NATIONAL SERVICES POLICY REVIEW OF NEPAL landlocked location between two giant economies:
India and China. Trade with China to the north is held back by the physical presence of the Himalaya
Mountains. Trade with India to the south is hampered by India’s protective trade policies and the fact that competing firms in India have greater economies of scale and competitiveness. The transiting of goods through India to international markets also imposes significant shipping costs and delays on Nepalese exporters. In addition, other economies in South and Eastern Asia are more advanced, marked by the presence of very competitive firms that can produce higher quality goods and services than Nepal, making opportunities for Nepalese exporters difficult to identify and maintain.